New course! “Works of Heart: Literature and Medical Humanities”

Here’s the description:
Has your heart warmed, filled, skipped, soared, or been broken? Have you or someone you love suffered heart disease, heart attack, or heart failure? Why does the heart hold such linguistic and symbolic as well as biological import for us? In this seminar, we’ll delve into poetry, fiction, and memoir by authors from Edgar Allan Poe and Kate Chopin to Rita Dove, Margaret Atwood, Brian Doyle, and Maylis de Kerangal along with articles and popular culture representations of hearts and heart health, as we explore the metaphorical and literal functions of the heart. This Delve will also serve as an introduction to the medical humanities, in which content and approaches from the humanities are used to deepen our understanding of health, illness, medical care, and our emotional relationship to our physical bodies.